


Good Concept, Poor Execution: Why Miracle Day Fails as a Torchwood Story

by AVAAntares



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Analysis, Commentary, Meta, Miracle Day, Nonfiction, Opinion, media review
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24113623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVAAntares/pseuds/AVAAntares
Summary: Archived from a series of Tumblr posts, this critical commentary summarizes my thoughts (positive and negative) onTorchwood: Miracle Day, its continuity issues, and how it fell short of viewer expectations established by the first three series ofTorchwood.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	1. On Torchwood: Miracle Day

**Author's Note:**

> These were originally posts on my personal Tumblr blog (avaantares.tumblr.com). I've collected them here for posterity in case Tumblr vanishes, and also for easy reference for any future discussions that may arise. This subject came up repeatedly in the fandom, and I made a number of posts relating to it, some in direct response to other community posts that are not archived here. Rather than trying to combine all the content, each chapter in this work was originally a self-contained post (separated in some cases by months of time).

Why this post? Because I’m planning to be lazy in the future. :) I keep seeing this series come up in discussion, and I wanted to get my thoughts down all in one spot for easy reference. So this is simply a text dump containing my thoughts on _Miracle Day,_ both positive and negative. (Spoiler: there are more negatives than positives.)

(Disclaimer: It’s been a few years since I watched this series, and I only did so once, so the impressions I’m reporting below are based on what was most salient/most memorable from that viewing. If I failed to notice a detail or have forgotten something, that’s my error – though I would argue that I’m usually a pretty astute viewer, so if something critical is not clear on a first watch, that fault may lie at least in part with the show.)

Okay. Got your popcorn ready? Let’s go.

## Things I disliked about _Miracle Day_ :

  * **Genre shift**. Instead of a character-driven fantasy like _Doctor Who_ and the first two series of _Torchwood_ , MD is structured more like a political thriller. This is not inherently bad – _Children of Earth_ straddled the line, and was still very effective -- but subjectively, MD didn’t _feel_ like _Torchwood_ at all to me. It felt really… American. (Full disclosure: I dislike a lot of American television writing in general; that’s why I watch more foreign TV than domestic, despite living in the U.S.)  
  

  * **The protagonists**. The new characters failed to interest me as a viewer. There was nothing endearing or compelling about Rex, and I personally disliked his character and his attitude. I don’t remember anything particularly dynamic about his character arc, either (he… learns to be a team player, I guess?). Esther, who started out as a fairly generic model of Perky Blonde Sidekick, became more likable as the series progressed; she had stated goals that hinted at future growth, but the most interesting conflicts the series set up for her (i.e. the personal drama over her sister’s kids) were, to my memory, never resolved. (See also Rex’s daddy issues – we take time establishing that he has them, but nothing ever comes of it. What did that scene really add to his overall character growth? Did his father ever even get mentioned again?)  
  
Oddly enough, the most compelling character out of the entire new lineup was Bill Pullman’s creeptastic pedophile, and I kind of feel like that shouldn’t be the case with an ensemble cast of this size. (Props to Pullman on that performance, though. 10/10 would set fire to that character.)  
  

  * **Jack’s regression**. This is admittedly a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things, but it still bothers me from a characterization standpoint. Jack started in series 1 of _Torchwood_ as… well, a bit of a jerk, actually (which is not inappropriate for his character at that point), but he grows over time (as lead characters should). Between S1 and S2 (Utopia/tSoD/LotTL) he reaches a turning point, choosing to return to Cardiff because he wants to be with his team, and he continues that dynamic process throughout the second series. Then CoE pulls the rug out from under him, and he flees Earth in grief – but when he returns in MD, it’s without the sensitivity or empathy we’d seen him develop through the previous series. At various times he displays behavior that is whiny, bitter, clingy, and caustic. It feels like much of the growth of the previous seasons was negated while he was off-planet, only there’s no clear explanation for what caused it (or, for that matter, why he returned at all; we’d last seen him in a space bar chatting up Alonso Frame, with no apparent intention to come back to Earth).  
  
I’d attribute the change to the losses he’s suffered, but I don’t see a clear connection between grief and the petulant attitude he seems to lapse into in MD, and the show itself doesn’t make any attempt to draw a link (Ianto rates a brief mention when Jack drunk-dials Gwen from another man’s bed; I don’t remember if Steven, Owen or Tosh are even spoken of, apart from Jack borrowing Owen’s name once). And we really have no frame of reference for how long he’s been gone. It might have been decades for Jack.  
  

  * **Let’s Talk About Sex(uality)**. When watching a show, I don’t typically pay any more attention to sexuality/representation than I do to shot framing or dialogue – I’m aware of it, but it’s not something I zero in on to criticize unless they’re doing it badly -- so when I actually pause an episode to complain about the insulting stereotypes, there’s a problem. I know some people were unhappy that Jack was presented more gay than omnisexual, but eh, okay, they’re marketing to a new audience, they have a bunch of new characters to deal with, maybe they don’t want to spend time explaining Jack’s proclivities. But there’s no excuse for that cringeworthy scene with everyone mocking the flight attendant for being gay, even though he denies it – and the punchline is that he experimented with a guy once, so OBVIOUSLY he’s secretly gay, haha, they were right all along! Gay stereotypes are funny!  
  
Um. Wow.  
  
I remember staring at the screen with my jaw hanging open and saying, “I can’t believe John Barrowman, of all people, was on board with this.” After the casual, understated openness of the previous three series, the change in tone – the calling-out of anyone’s sexuality _at all_ in a series where historically, nearly the entire main cast was (at least) bisexual -- was almost whiplash-inducing. (See above re: it just didn’t feel like _Torchwood_.)  
  

  * **Continuity? Schmontinuity! ...** And this is where the series _really_ lost me. I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a detail nerd, but mistakes like these are worse than sloppy – they’re downright _confusing_ when you’re actually trying to figure out what’s going on in the show.  
  
The events of _Miracle Day_ not only break the entire _Doctor Who_ universe, but they aren’t even internally consistent with the rest of _Torchwood_. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out just when the “Immortal Sins” flashbacks were supposed to have happened and whether or not a time loop was integral to the plot, because all the on-screen evidence in those episodes indicated that Jack was on his _fourth_ tour of the 20th century: Jack explains to Angelo that he’s a fixed point in time – yet Jack himself wouldn’t learn that from the Doctor until 70 years later in his own timeline. Also, Jack is running around in the mid-1930s wearing his WWII-issue RAF greatcoat (and Webley holster, etc.) – but WWII hasn't started yet, so he can't have served in it (as an American volunteer or anything else) to acquire a coat, and he can’t possibly have one from the future as he has been living on Earth in linear time since 1869. (He didn’t have the coat when he was stranded on Satellite Five, and isn’t shown wearing it in other _Torchwood_ flashbacks/photos until the appropriate era.) In short, the ONLY way the MD timeline works is if Jack went back to the 1930s after fleeing the planet in _Children of Earth,_ which makes no sense at all from a story or character standpoint.  
  
Furthermore, the “explanation” for the Miracle contradicts everything we’ve been told up to this point about Jack’s immortality. Jack is supposedly a fixed point in time, being kept alive by the time vortex itself – except, apparently, when you set up a morphic field that somehow inverts the power of the time vortex around the entire planet, without affecting the flow of time, or any other fixed points, or anything else? And there’s also a nullification field that re-reverses the morphic field to let Angelo die, except for some reason it _doesn’t_ restore Jack’s immortality when he’s inside it? Are we not even going to hand-wave an explanation for this? (Inconveniently, this also toasts our main character hook: Apparently Jack can die any time he likes by setting up a portable field to neutralize his immortality, like Angelo did. Welp, there goes our tragically-immortal protagonist. On to the next series.)  
  
…And let’s not even discuss the nonsense with the Trickster’s Brigade and FDR’s brain, which doesn’t jive with the Trickster’s repeatedly-stated objectives in _The Sarah Jane Adventures_. I’m all for name-dropping-in-a-non-legally-actionable-way-because-we-don’t-have-full-rights-to-Doctor-Who-properties, but that was just silly.  
  

  * **The $@%^ &# ending**. This probably belongs with the previous entry, but it made me furious enough to merit its own bullet point. Jack’s blood now makes other people immortal? …the HECK?! Is Rex a fixed point in time now? How does that even work? Does Earth somehow influence the time vortex? Can a planet clone the time stream? NONE OF THIS IS COMPATIBLE WITH THE REST OF THE WHONIVERSE.  
  

  * **The villains**. One thing that made _Torchwood_ as a series interesting is that for the most part, the formula for each episode wasn’t “Our Heroes vs. The Generic Bad Guys Bent On World Domination.” Antagonists were usually more complex, and often the conflict left the team in a moral gray area. Team Torchwood faced evil humans (”Countrycide”), betrayal from within (”They Keep Killing Suzie”), unwitting enemy agents (”Sleeper”), opportunistic human capitalists (”Meat”), time itself (”Out of Time;” “To The Last Man”), and even the government ( _Children of Earth_ ), among others. Sure, there were occasional Generic Bad Guy episodes (”Reset”), but it wasn’t the norm – and in my opinion, the series’ weakest moments were when they fell into that more generic formula. (”End of Days” had some interesting moments, but the giant CGI monster stomping on Cardiff wasn’t one of them.)  
  
In MD, though, we have this amazingly complex setup for an intriguing and world-altering scenario, with hints that it stretches across decades if not centuries, revolving around Jack and those he loved, and there’s so much buildup that we _know_ there must be some deep meaning behind it all… And then it’s revealed that the villain behind the curtain is A Group Of Evil Mob Bosses Bent On World Domination™. There’s not even any personal tie to Jack, who should (for the sake of symmetry) be at the center of it all. It’s just some Generic Bad Guys messing around with some stuff they found. Even though it’s his blood, Jack as a character is really just incidental to it all. The reveal would have exactly the same emotional gravitas if one of the Bad Guys had found Jack’s discarded vortex manipulator and used it to take over the world. It was just... unsatisfying.



...There’s more, but I think that’s enough digital ink spilled for the moment. I’m sure you can get an idea of my general opinion.

But, in fairness, now that I’ve griped about everything I didn’t like, let’s look at

## Things _Miracle Day_ did well:

  * **The premise.** The concept of people suddenly not dying, the fallout of that situation, and the questions it raises about life and death, civil rights, and society as a whole, is a _brilliant_ concept! It would have made a very solid sci-fi film/series on its own; I just wish it hadn’t been crammed into Torchwood, because it didn’t mesh well with the story already in progress. Even so, there were moments where the sociopolitical drama actually played out quite well in spite of the show’s other issues. There were legitimately creepy horror elements – people being burned alive or dissected and _not dying_ during the process – and it was interesting to consider the practical questions of where you put bodies, how you classify them, and so on. The family drama with Gwen’s father showed the more personal dilemma, while Vera’s incineration highlighted the danger of having the decision-making power in the wrong hands.  
  

  * **Gwen vs. Jack**. Gwen having to choose between her family and Jack was the logical progression for her character’s story, and while I can’t say I _enjoyed_ watching the trust between them disintegrate, I do think it was a good conflict to set up, and it gave both of them some much-needed character focus amid a very event-driven plot. (And it was a relief not to have any of those unconvincing awkward-sexual-tension scenes shoehorned in… wait, now I’m griping about the earlier series. Sorry.) Gwen had several good character moments during the series, actually; I remember the bit where she talks about killing her father as being particularly powerful, and she had a few fun one-liners as well (”I’m Welsh”). She was also given some good action sequences. Speaking of which…  
  

  * **Helicopter vs**. **shoulder-fired missile. With baby under one arm.** Okay, not gonna lie, that entire sequence was pure candy.  
  

  * **Andy Davidson**. Yes. Good. We can always use more Sgt. Andy. (Let him join Torchwood already!) Aside from their roles in the story, the presence of Andy and Rhys did provide a more solid link to the previous series. It’s not Torchwood without a minimum percentage of Welsh accents, after all. :)  
  

  * **The Oswald Danes storyline**. It was creepy and disturbing, but the story of a psychotic killer, manipulated by a media expert, who rises to celebrity status and begins influencing public action was quite compelling (and, now that I think of it, may have struck a little too close to home… did I mention I live in the U.S.? *ahem*). Another thing I didn’t _enjoy_ , per se, but it was certainly effective, especially coupled with Pullman’s convincing performance.



So there’s my (incredibly long and verbose) take on _Miracle Day_. I think it could best be summarized as “Great concept, weak execution.” Congratulations if you actually read this far. :)


	2. Can Miracle Day fit into series continuity?

So we all know Miracle Day was a train wreck ~~for so many reasons~~ particularly in the areas of internal consistency and continuity. If we assume that Jack visited Ellis Island in the 1930s on his first full trip through the 20th century (apparently while on break from working as a contractor for Torchwood 3), the entire series continuity breaks: Jack somehow knows he’s a fixed point in time 70 years before he finds the Doctor; Jack knows about the Pantheon of Discord before they appear on Earth; Jack has his RAF coat and WWII wardrobe despite the fact that WWII hasn’t happened yet... It’s a mess.

The only way _any_ of the 1937 continuity works is if it is shifted to the post-Torchwood era. This implies that Jack returned to Earth at some point between CoE and MD, but not to the time he’d left; instead, he came back to an earlier era and a different continent (perhaps not only to avoid himself, but to flee Torchwood and its associated memories). This additional time gap would conveniently explain why he looks a little older (Rex refers to Jack as a man in his 40s, while Jack became immortal at age 35 -- per the _Doctor Who Character Encyclopedia_ \-- and has been gradually aging ever since) and how he knows things he couldn’t have learned until the 21st century.

The problem is, I don’t remember if there were any specifics given in MD that would negate this theory (for example, if Jack mentions that he’s looking for the Doctor, it would imply he hasn’t met him yet), and I really don’t want to sit through MD again, so I’m turning to the community at large. Does anyone remember enough about MD to know if the 1937 timeline could have happened after CoE? I suspect there will be continuity holes either way, but I’d at least like to figure out if it’s plausible.

(I wouldn’t waste energy worrying about MD at all, except that I’m trying to reconcile the continuity errors for a very convoluted fic I’m working on, and some of the timeline contradictions are relevant.)


	3. The Morphic Field

That earlier post about Miracle Day that I responded to got me thinking…

IIRC, in Miracle Day, Jack was only made mortal because of the Earth’s morphic field resetting the parameters of life and death based on a sample of his immortal blood. So in theory, he’s only mortal _while he’s on Earth_.

So if he’d actually died, permanently, and Gwen or someone had shot his remains into space, would have have come back to life once he escaped the range of the morphic field and reentered the domain wherein he was still a fixed point in time?

(The more I think about this, the more messed up Miracle Day’s “science” turns out to be.)


	4. Rex's Immortality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was part of a MUCH longer thread of discussion posts about the in-universe mechanics of Rex's immortality which, if Tumblr still exists, can be viewed here: https://avaantares.tumblr.com/post/149752416464/thatsallweget-1-yes-youre-completely-right
> 
> (Do note that this discussion took place in 2016, before the Big Finish sequel series was released.)

I can add to this! (Because it’s not long enough already…) XD

First off, just accept that Miracle Day was a continuity train wreck and DOES NOT reconcile neatly with the rest of the Doctor Who canon (Jack somehow knew about being a fixed point in time 70+ years before the Doctor explained it to him? The Pantheon of Discord gets involved in Earth politics? The Time Vortex can be localized to a single planet?!).

Now, as to how the immortality works – Jack’s immortality in MD operates under completely different rules from the rest of the DW canon. In MD, Jack is somehow inherently immortal. The immortality reversal at the heart of the plot is due to a morphic field being generated within the planet itself. When Jack’s immortal blood was introduced, the planet assumed Jack was the new “normal” and reset the parameters for life and death. This is further explored in Exodus Code, in which there is fallout for introducing Jack’s 51st-century DNA to the planet and screwing up the Earth’s internal timeline for humanity. (Again, this causes ALL sorts of issues with the rest of Whoniverse canon. It also suggests that if Jack simply left Earth, he’d be out of range of the morphic field and would revert to being immortal. Just smile and nod; it will never make sense.)

Since Rex’s blood had been mostly replaced with Jack’s at the time the field was reset, one of two things happened:

1) Jack’s blood reset the planet again (causing Jack to become immortal), but since Rex still retained some of Jack’s blood cells in his system, he gained temporary immortality, which will fade as Jack’s blood cells are replaced by his own as he will no longer be affected by the morphic field.

2) Since the Time Vortex is not responsible for keeping Jack alive in the Miracle Whip bubble, Rex’s human blood being mixed with Jack’s immortal blood when it was dumped into the core caused the planet to flip the reset switch but make _both_ of them immortal, because it couldn’t differentiate between Rex’s and Jack’s DNA.

Now, personally, I favor the first explanation, because the second one is _made of stupid,_ and also suggests that anyone with Rex’s blood or DNA could also become immortal (hope he doesn’t have kids!). However, it’s pretty clear from that last scene that Starz was setting up for a potential spinoff/sequel about Rex The Immortal CIA Agent, so I suspect the original intent was to have him be permanently immortal.

Someone recently posted an interview with the Barrowman siblings about their prep work in writing Exodus Code, and John mentioned that Russell T. Davies had given them parameters of what they were allowed to reference from the previous seasons, including some things that they were specifically _not_ permitted to incorporate into the story. Many people suspect that Rex’s immortality is on the Do Not Mention Ever Again list. :)


End file.
